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  #31  
Old 09-25-2006, 11:23 AM
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jferraro17 jferraro17 is offline
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Mike--

Thanks! You showed A LOT more patience than I did in explaining this situation. Hopefully, I can be taken down off the cross now.

Bottom line for me is: These crews know what they are doing, they are not operating in a vacuum (with regard to Maintenance, engineering, management input), it's a huge team effort, that I KNOW was discussed at such great lengths the average guy on the street would be amazed, they had a TON of time to decide the proper course, and of course, their pink bodies were sitting in the same jet that those 300+ passengers were.

I've been there, and done it. 3 engine divert to Johnston Atoll (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:JohnstonAtoll.jpeg) That is a long, lonely 2 hours to think about how things are going to turn out.

I guess I don't understand the concept that anyone--you, me, anyone--can read a NEWSPAPER account of what happened and then condemn them as doing something wrong; implying that the passengers have a right to know about a decision that HAS to be made by the crew and their team. What does the typical passenger expect? A vote on whether to continue or not?

To then drape it in some sort of "flight safety education" situation on a board about single engine recip (generally) RVs is stretching the scope a bit, IMO.

That' all it is, my opinion. I just happen to think my opinion is grounded in a bit of experience, versus what I read in a news article.

Joe
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Last edited by jferraro17 : 09-25-2006 at 11:25 AM.
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  #32  
Old 09-25-2006, 01:25 PM
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Red face Interesting, would it be a story if he just landed back at LAX

Here is the details of the 2005 deal:

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/fligh...itair-la_x.htm

It seems economic reasons and pressures are driving decisions? You decide. In this case the pilot needed to made an emergency landing due do almost running out of fuel! Now they say, well not really? Right OK.

You can burn more fuel on three engines than four. For one you must fly lower, which burns more fuel, especially if head winds are increased. Also asymmetric thrust requires some rudder, which is more drag, not including drag of a windmilling engine. Almost running out of fuel and landing short of destination does not sound like a game plan. Here is quote:
.....aircraft lost power in one of its engines shortly after taking off from Los Angles International Airport. The pilot made an emergency landing in Manchester, England, about 160 miles short of London, because the B747 ran low on fuel, facing headwinds that were stronger than expected, the FAA said.
Does this sound like sound decision making. The flight ends in fuel critical state? Please

Reality check!!! Over

11 hour flight, half of which is over the Atlantic, 60 to 210 minutes from any place to land! You can fly a non-oceanic path over greenland and iceland, but that adds a lot of time. Lets be honest, it's not all for safety. We can justify from aeronautical logic, the plane flys fine on three engines, but it does not mean its a great idea. Apparently BA has not figured out how to fly 11 hour revenue flights on 3 engines.

There is no controversy if a precautionary landing was made. I know for sure you can't push back on a revenue flight with 3 out of 4 engines. "Geee we can't get #3 started, lets takeoff and go anyway." Is there much difference loosing an engine at the gate or 100 feet over the runway? If they would have lost it just before V1 they would have stopped. We are talking about +350 people and 11 hours.

Just my opinion, the safest thing would have been to dump fuel and land. This would of course been at huge cost to the airline: fuel, loss of plane from schedule, crew, catering, passenger accommodations, contracted maintenance and leasing or shipping of a replacement engine.

On the other hand, so what. It's not wrong to land. I don't think any one is saying landing is BAD. Obviously landing would not have brought such bad press. Sometime going is good for other reasons, like on a B757. With out fuel dump you may be better flying and burning fuel off. However the B747-400 has fuel dump, I know for sure, I designed part of it, and taught in the 747-400 simulator. Don't worry it won't let you dump all your fuel.

It takes things like this to expose it to the public, who pay to fly on the planes. Pressure from them on the FAA will decide this, or worse an accident.

Heavy flyer's, James from Oz and dd-David-aviator, commented. Hi Gents. I have flown the Atlantic also, ETOPS (engines turning or people swimming) on a regular basis, but all in twins, B757 and B767. It's not an option to continue if you puke an engine on a twin, as you know; you WILL land at the nearest of departure, t/o alternate, enroute alternate destination. Even then pilots get into the suitable nearest airport catch 22 rational. Passing a theoretically suitable runway for an airport, even just 50 nm further away, but is MORE suitable, e.g., better facilities and maintenance, is a good way to get in trouble. The closer airport as NOTHING but asphault, but the one down the road has all the amenities? It seems reasonable to go to the larger airport, especially if drifting down from altitude. Catch 22.

I personally would not consider starting an Atlantic or Pacific crossing with one of four engines shut down, but I have no actual 4-engine time. I know a B747-400 flys fine on 3. For training, I sat on the jump seat once to observe three engine B747-400 touch and goes. It was a non-event, but than again we where light.

Ailine pilots flying for hire have to justify their decision the next day. I think landing is a very defensible decisions, based on safety alone or perceived safety to the public. Now landing for something trivial will get you into hot water, but loosing 25% of your power, some electical, pneumatics and hydraulic capability, is not trivial, at least in my opinion.

ETOPS (extended TWIN ops) are for twins not 3 and 4 engine planes, but there's lessons to be learned. A 747 with three engines running, is a twin if you loose the second engine. The North Atlantic is special airspace with special rules to enter it. For TWINS to fly the Atlantic it takes lots of extra maintenace, monitoring, training and dispatch requirements.

If the pilots are trained to enter OCEANIC airspace w/ one engine out, than fine. Is dispatch trained to deal with the performance and regs and being more than two hours away from land on two engine speed (if you loose another)? Also if you can't keep your speed and altitude up, you can't fly in NA oceanic airspace. You either have to fly low (below FL250) or around to the north, the long way, both bad for fuel.

If it ain't in the book (Ops) than I would have a hard time going for it, even if the chief pilot said sure, you can do that if YOU want. Pilots want to do what is best for the passengers and crew and company, but sometimes they have to do what is best for them, ie cover their back side.

If all Regs where meet, airline and aviation authorities said fine, its something they train pilots for and airline dispatch approved it, working out new flt plan numbers, adjusting fuel, altitude (fuel burn goes up, max alt goes down) and the weather was good, than go for it. Apparently BA does it all the time. We shall see if they had all their paper work, training and oversight in place.


I think everyone has good points, but Ill be critical of the aero-news guy.
"(B747-400) go around with one engine" Ridiculous comment. Is that some justification for doing the 3 out of 4 crossing? No and probably is not correct with a heavy plane; just crazy talk.

"Its one thing if it spewing parts or just a surge." That would be my point, do you really know?

"most ops manuals over three engine operations of big jumbo jets allow this" Really, has he seen most ops manuals?

A C-130 on practice over LAND with three engines is not +300 people over the Atlantic, hour and 1/2 from any land. Lets not mix senerios.

If you think there are no economic reasons for continuing to England from LAX! and a maintenance base, than I have some swamp property I'd like to sell you. What about the new european law requiring carriers to reimburse passengers for substantial delays.[/u] On the other hand if the Captain would have landed, the airline probably would made his life miserable. Was that on his mind? Is he a company man. One of the worst accidents in aviation history, KLM / PanAm runway collision, tenerife in '77, in small part was from schedule pressure, curfew and crew duty time. There was enough blame to go around, as well as more significant reasons, but "got to get there" was part of it.

That is why clear regs and op procedures are great for pilots. It gives way to clear indisputable decisions. I guarantee you first accident it will be a law. They already have come close. Do we really need or want to wait for that? B747's have 4 engines and FUEL dump for a reason, they need and should use them.

This may be an area that needs some better guidance. May be its old news to 4-engine pilots like James or dd. I think like a twin driver. I don't work to economic, management or schedule pressures when safety is involved. That is the way to have a bad day, even for GA pilots. I would rather justify being a little too conservative and be wrong, than be a company man and make a big mistake. "I was trying to save money or schedule" is never a defense.
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Last edited by gmcjetpilot : 09-25-2006 at 05:06 PM.
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  #33  
Old 09-25-2006, 06:21 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tobinbasford
According to this link, the crew landed with more than enough fuel onboard. They diverted because they were deficient in how to balance out the total fuel load with only three engines and "thought" they wouldn't be able to get fuel out of a particular tank, FWIW.

http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/publicati...36__g_bnlg.cfm
Ahahhh!
Sounds to me like they couldn't transfer the tail fuel (about 22,000 pounds stored in the HS), towards the end. That fuel won't transfer until late in the flight.
John
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  #34  
Old 09-25-2006, 06:26 PM
jdmunzell jdmunzell is offline
 
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As a B757/767 driver, continuing is obviously not an option, but I'm not familiar with our 747-400 ops manual. I can almost guarantee though that those guys are also not allowed to continue on a long flight...with passengers that is.

For one thing our flight plans are based on certain given criteria ( such as all engines running and at given altitudes and Mach numbers. You start changing those items and now you're operating in a different enviroment. Time is different, fuel burn is different, altitude and speed are different. Not saying you can't obtain that information, because you can. But you weren't fueled for that particular type of contingency. You were fueled with certain int'l fuel regs taken into account, ETOPS diversions and so forth.

Maybe the British Airways ops specs allow for that, but somehow I doubt it.
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  #35  
Old 09-25-2006, 06:36 PM
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fodrv7 fodrv7 is offline
 
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Stephen,
Nice balanced post and of course you have the right to ask the for more information- as a fare paying pax- as I do when my Doc pulls out humungous hypodermic with the intention of inserting it under my knee cap to extract the fluid on my knee.
When I did Pacific crossings in the 747-400 and A340, we did not have fuel a problem west bound as the last 4 hrs, when fuel was low, was over a myriad of airports in Japan into which we could divert in the case on an engine failure.
East bound this luxury did not exist.
The Pacific is much bigger than the Atlantic, as we all know, and early into an eastbound flight, an engine failure would mean turning back, as we would not have sufficient fuel to fly on.
Commercial ops require a variable fuel ?sometimes called contingency- of 5-10%, carried in case of an unforecast headwind component or any reason that might cause higher than expected fuel burn. As the east bound flight progressed, if the winds were as forecast (and they were amazingly accurate) the variable fuel would not be burnt and a surplus would gradually accumulate. In a 14hr flight 5% is a lot of fuel. There therefore came a point before the PNR where we had sufficient fuel to loose an engine and fly on and land at Vancouver. Later, if still on four engines, Fly On fuel was achieved for San Francisco and eventually LAX. Obviously this procedure would work across any ocean.
Besides the paper flight plan with all this excellent data on fuel state and options in the case of failure, in a modern airliner you can type any airport into the FMC (Flight Management Computer), the Flight Level achievable Engine Out and the ETA and arrival fuel is be calculated. So we would know that Tokyo was available and then later Anchorage and then Vancouver etc. in case of an engine out. I suspect in the case being discussed here, the crew knew they had Iceland and then Scotland, the point being they would have always had somewhere to go.
As an illustration of the level of technology available, I once started up in Singapore and had a warning light on then accessory gearbox illuminate. There was an AD for this particular light, so I called the company engineering on the Sat Phone ?1000nm away- and then Engineer said; ?Yes! I see you have a Gearbox light On #1 engine, but it was triggered by a different occurrence to that covered by the AD, so it is OK to proceed.?
He had more information in front of him than I did, telemetered information that was constantly being transmitted by the aircraft and monitored by the company engineering base. The support structure for decision making in airlines is huge.
This has been an excellent thread and is RV related. It demonstrates the need to know your fuel state and the options available to you.
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  #36  
Old 09-25-2006, 07:12 PM
N62XS N62XS is offline
 
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If the count used earlier is correct, there were 350 reasons to land. Where I come from, if my wife and kids were on the flight and the crew chose to fly 5000 miles in a broke airliner, the captain would probably require three months of rehab!

I agree with Steve concerning an early landing and I CANNOT BELIEVE anyone can logically or morally argue to the contrary.
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  #37  
Old 09-25-2006, 07:48 PM
RatMan RatMan is offline
 
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Just a thought Joe, but when you start out with a comment like...

Quote:
Originally Posted by jferraro16
I hope nobody takes this personally, but a bunch of homebuilder's with private pilot licesnses, and a couple of thousand hours (tops) have no place Monday-morning-quaterbacking these guys.
Kinda tends to put people on the defensive.

Sure, most of us don't have hours that could possibly compare to a guy monitoring gauges in a 747 for years on end. However, I bet there are a few here with many more flights though, hundreds more takeoffs and landings. Perhaps thousands more decisions made by themselves in flight than a guy sitting at the wheel of big iron. So to demean them (us) really isn't fair now is it?

I've got two friends that fly 172's for a living, have done so for years. One has just over 21,000 hours and the other has over 40,000 hours. All single engine, all over water. I've learned a lot from them even though they haven't ever ever flown for an airline. I would have to say they're both professional pilots.

Just an opinion, just an observation.
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  #38  
Old 09-25-2006, 08:07 PM
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fodrv7 fodrv7 is offline
 
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Default Reserved opinion

If I was on a flight where a serious problem developed, I would pray for a bloke in the left seat like George. There would be no doubt that he would not bow to company pressure and would take the operationally correct action. He?s a Captain's captain. And boy he knows his aviation.
He has slipped a little in implying I condone the action of the crew in this incident, simply because I have not condemned it.
Not condemning does not necessarily mean condoning.
Re-reading my two posts I am happy with what I set out to do and that was to point out;
1. All operations involve a cost/risk analysis. And there followed some really informed comments on cost/risk by people whose trade it is.
2. It is ridiculous to assert that the crew were flying around not knowing if they had enough fuel to make an airport. I trust my explanation was clear.
Not having seen the whole report I am very reluctant to condemn or condone, as I know I have been guilty, in the past, of making bad judgments from the information in the daily press.
I can say, however, I can?t think of any reason that would entice me to leave the security of the North American Landmass.
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  #39  
Old 09-25-2006, 08:14 PM
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Default Hear. Hear.

Spot on Ratman.
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  #40  
Old 09-25-2006, 09:19 PM
David-aviator David-aviator is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fodrv7
2. It is ridiculous to assert that the crew were flying around not knowing if they had enough fuel to make an airport. I trust my explanation was clear.
If not, here's another. I do not remember the minutia of the rules, but this is how it works.

A flight from Rome to New York needs x amount of fuel in reserve at New York because of the the distance (a rule). Sometimes it is more than the airplane holds or is permitted due to gross weight limitations or more than the company wants to carry because it costs $$ to carry fuel not needed.

So the dispatch will read, Flight blaw-blaw, released to Gander subject re release to New York. Coming across the pond, the dispatcher will determine a new fuel requirement for New York based on the remaining much shorter distance and latest weather forecasts. If the flight has sufficient fuel remaining under the close in rule, it's on to JFK, if not, land at Gander and refuel. The flight can not proceed past Gander without a new release.

This type of dispatch was routine some years ago. More than likely, that is how the 747 proceeded to London, but stopped in Manchester to refuel as required by the policy (rules). At least that is how it would work under Part 121.

dd
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